Episode 2, Part 2: Into an Abyss of Horror [DONE]

[Ancient Gamer]

Her arms were glistening, a sheen of sweat having formed as she pulled up her comrades and brothers in arms, one by one. Of course, Kiph had already ascended the wall and after lowering a rope he scouted ahead, looking for any signs of danger. Doctor Brevil was the last one to be hoisted up by her powerful arms, his arms aching, for his strength did not match the size of his body.

The morning air was chill as the first light of the sun hit the city wall, bathing the unlikely trio in a soft orange glow. Behind her Ceres heard Riv check his shotgun for the third time since he made it to the top, his eyes flickering as he scanned corner after corner, trying to discern the whereabouts of any G'Kraun mutants.

The smell of burning gas was thick in the air, the wind blowing smoke in their direction. The diversion had worked just fine, though Brevil was surprised by how few G'Kraun had noticed it.

Must be that they are retreating below ground, he thought as he rubbed his sore shoulders.
Man, that woman is unhuman, her strength like that of... He let the thought die, for the memories of the failure, Project Minotaurus, was unpleasant at best.

*******************

His night vision goggles on, Kiph made his way down the stairs, silent and fleet, like a shadow in the night. There were bodies everywhere, the fallen men mutilated and disfigured. Some he recognized, thugs formerly in the employ of Steroid Anne, others were new to him. In an alley there had been survivors, but they were wrong somehow, coughing and twisting, blood running from their eyes and noses.

His right hand was caressing the Fatebringer Stiletto, his left gently touching a corpse. It had been dead long enough to have grown cold to touch, yet something was odd about this corpse. He couldn't quite remember, but somehow it sent shivers of dread down his spine and he hadn't felt anything remotely like it since... childhood.

[Murometz]

Kiph poked the corpse, and tittered. There was no denying it any longer, the young Fatebringer thought, its all coming back to me now slowly.

This man, this poor bastard, and no doubt countless others had suffered as Kiph had suffered. Tortured by the spacers, the demons of the Last Gambit. The song which echoed unbidden in his head not long ago, echoed once more. The words of Dr. Brevil repeated themselves in his brain as well. Then a cacophany of white noise, then nothing.

Kiph stared at the abbatoir all around him, taking in every detail, every bloody bit of flesh, every mutilated limb, every bleeding eyeball, entrenched forever in his memory.

He wanted to scream as loud as his cancer-ridden lungs would allow. He wanted to strip down and lie down amidst the gore, and sing and cry and laugh. He wanted to die.

He wanted to scream, but he dared not, for beside the morbidly familiar look of some of the corpses, there were others that were familiar as well. Victims of the G’Kraun. And a scream would draw them out.

Instead, Kiph slowly fought back his own madness and tried to focus. He would need to do two things. He needed to speak again with Dr. Cornell and he needed to find his fellow Fatebringers.

He needed to do one other thing, he forced himself to think. He needed to report back to Ceres.

Scaling the stairs as quickly as he had descended, Kiph returned to his three companions, and spoke.

“Death is everywhere. Shall we proceed?”

His voice was strangely calm. He did not sound like his usual, shrill, babbling self

[Ancient Gamer]

His voice had stilled and Kiph waited for Ceres' reply. As he did so he felt something clutched in his left hand. Looking down he noticed a tear drop insignia, no doubt torn from one of the bodies he had passed. He did not remember doing so, which troubled him somewhat. More troubling, however, was the insignia itself.

The Last Gambit... They are here.

[valadaar]

Why the HELL did I come here, thought Riv.

"Well, lets get this over with..."  He checked his shotgun once more again, wishing he had had time to get a good smith to fix the bayonet.  Probably won't get the chance again, he though grimly.

[EchoMirage]

"I take the point - stay close, and keep your eyes open. Let's grab what we came for, and be gone. If we can save some poor bugger, fine, but do not risk your life - or ours needlessly. If anything seems threatening, shoot. Divide loot according to weight amongst us - take the light and valuable stuff, especially high tech, and information."

They had to save some of the knowledge of the academy! Letting it rot here would be ... sacrilege.

"Now, Brevil - how shall we enter the Academy grounds?"

[dark_dragon]

Brevil's eyes met Ceres' an locked intensely. Slowly, and ever so carefully, so that Ceres would follow his gaze, they traveled to kiph's outstretched hand, then to his unusually still face. The First signs. The first signs were there. Brevil thought, an inner terror suddenly rising, accompanied by as much bitter tasting bile. I hope she saw them too.

Regaining some sort of control and steadying the trembling of his lips, Brevil spoke at last, unsuccessfully hiding his shock at the rising stench of death and burning as well as the sight of desolation.

"...I...I'm sorry. I just, just didn't expect this. Yes, Yes, of course. The Academy. I think that we can reach it by following this street there for a bit, We'll be in sight of the perimeter first. We can climb over again. That'll be...the most discreet."

A clear tremor was now audible in Brevil's speech.

"I suggest we stick to the middle of the roads. At least, we wont be caught by surprise, and in the open, we can hit the G'Kraun before they get to us."

Unable to contain his growing nausea anymore, The tall scientist suddenly bent over, and noisily threw up, the still undigested chunks of food rolling in his mouth.

Once finished he weakly turned to the others, his voice slowly returning to normal.

"Don't...Just Don't worry. I just.. needed to get it out of my system. Thats all. Let's just do what we came to do and get the hell out of here as fast as we can."

"Kiph, I know its stupid coming from me, but... Are you going to be alright?"

[Ancient Gamer]

Kiph studied the doctor whose behaviour seemed strangely odd, even for Brevil. He looked once more into his hand, but it was empty now, his fingers clutching an insignia that wasn't there. A chill of dread went down his spine and he could not escape the feeling of being watched.

No... Not watched... Something... else...

Pangs of pain and nausea caused by discomfort rolled through the body of the Fatebringer and he instinctively stretched out to Ceres for support, the brutish medics' arms as unyielding as ever, allowing him to keep his balance.

********************

The others stood watching as Kiph nearly fell, but Ceres grabbed him as he weakly stretched out for her. Blood was running out his left nostril and his eyes were bloodshot as he looked up. Behind him the orange light of dawn hit rooftop after rooftop in the city. The sun was reflected by many of the metallic rooftops, creating a dazzling display, and finally hit the domes of the academy, nestled against the cliff face of the Spacer Plateau. There the Warden had built a space port of sorts. Even now the gates of the Divine Passage, the road leading up to the plateau, were shut, its towers seeming like the fangs of some forboding monster from antiquity. Indeed, they had been dubbed "The Fangs of Divine Despair" by Protector Khamazein, the outlaw emperor that had ruled before the arrival of the Warden and the imposing of order.

Suddenly they realized how huge the Academy had really been. It was said that in the days of the Ancients it had been a maximum security prison, a place where only the maddest and meanest of the Ancients were sent; to rot, to perish and die in shameful exile. In later times, during the heyday of Bleak Wood, the scientists had moved in and according to some it had become an even more grim place, where decency and ethics was all but forgotten. Of course, the same could be said about the rest of humanity as well and the population in general prospered greatly as Bleak Wood became a bulwark of civilization.

*********************

Only mere seconds had passed, but Kiph seemed more like his usual self now. He wiped his nose of blood and turned around, viewing the city along with his friends.

They could not read his mind. They did not know what he knew. For Kiph was awakened, aware and he was furious. For something had invaded his mind, slowly, silently, like an assassin in the dark enters a victim's abode. But this assassin had proven unable to outwit the nomad Fatebringer and somehow Kiph had sensed it as it browsed through his subconscious, trying subtly to invoke hidden fear and terror. And with unprecedented clarity and resolve he had repulsed the presence. In an odd way he had... sensed it, and he just knew it was hiding amongst the corpses in the streets below. Of course the ordeal had taken an immense physical toll and he could taste blood in his mouth and was still light headed from the experience.

[EchoMirage]

"Okay, boys. If anybody else feels like fainting, please tell me now - I don't want to rush us in there in less than optimum shape."

Ceres was worried - while the place was unwholesome, she did not feel even a fraction of the uneasiness her fellows were experiencing.
Standing in front of the gloomy ruins, she knew that it was far from a good place to question one's feelings.
Still.
She felt too calm, almost locked down.
As if the wastes had dulled her.
Ever since Mai-Ling died, the feeling of enstrangement had been growing stronger.
Nobody she had met on the road seemed fit to confide in.

Which might be a sign of what kind of people the world created. Or what kind of person she was.

A brief moment of hesitation later, she had dealt with the prodigal thoughts the best way she could.

She shut them off.

[Murometz]

"I'm fine", he wiped his own venomous blood from his face and mumbled at Cornell, who was busy wiping bile from his own mouth, and turning to Ceres, "I'll take the back", he calmly announced and slinked further away from the companions, re-donning his goggles, and fingering Abak Loett's ring.

He unsheated his machete and unholstered his dart gun.

As Kiph followed the three, he felt worms crawling in his brain. Again, he looked at his palm, and then at Brevil who walked directly in front of him, and then at his palm again, and then in the direction of the Fangs of Divine Despair, where it had all began for him, all those years ago, he now realized, his insanity giving way temporarily to crystal clarity.

Wiping his hand on his pants, to avoid possibly poisoning the good doctor, he tapped Cornell's shoulder, as the quartet descended in Bleakwood. Riv was ahead, right behind Ceres, the pyromaniac's shoulders, tight, almost coiled, and looking ahead.

Once several dozen feet away from Ceres and Riv, Kiph said to Brevil,

"I know now. They came for me just now. JUST NOW", he seethed to keep himself from screaming. "They know where I am, even now, and they know how to get me. They came for me, they marked me. I made them go away" he smiled maniacally, "I forced them out. But i fear. I fear them. I CANNOT let them get me again. I CANNOT...ever again." he blurted, realizing he was babbling incomprehensibely.

"Tell me what you know, doctor. Tell me Everything. Tell me of the Last Gambit. Are you one of them? Please, tell me!" Tears came unbidden to Kiph's eyes, and for several seconds he stood shuddering and crying, looking to Brevil as a newborn pup to his new owner.

They began walking again, several dozen feet behind the other two, as Kiph awaited a responce.

[Ancient Gamer]

As they walked through town, wading through corpses, they noticed an unsettling amount of bodies both of men, women and G'Kraun. The market district had been torched to the ground during the riots and as they stalked through the rubble they noticed how strangely quiet it was.

The thought had just began unsettling them when the screaming began, coming from somewhere ahead, close to the Academy.

"Oh gods noo! Noooo! Die! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

The words drowned in a cacophony of sound as the mechanical buzz of a minigun rose in intensity.

[dark_dragon]

<ooc>Sorry there, Its a bit of a continuity jar, but I was working on this and then you posted AG. </ooc>

"No... No... I'm... Not of the last gambit." Brevil's eyes had widened again.

How did the young fatebringer know this name. What does Kiph know?

Many times in his life Brevil had committed the vilest horrors in the name of 'Science', But this name, oh... this name, carried a particular memory that Brevil had never really gotten over.

It wasn't my fault, She deserved it. She deserved her fate for what she tried to do to me. My genes. They were mine. She had no right!

It would be ironic, wouldn't it Brevil thought To meet Jane again. This time her deformed body would not be restrained behind the heavy steel bars... And even in such a situation, Brevil saw the beautiful irony of it. Monster Creating Monster. Scientist sacrificed to science, coming back to hunt and haunt the one who had carried out the sacrifice.

No, not of the last gambit at all...

"Kiph, Kiph. Its Okay. I'll tell you what I know of the last gambit. I'm not one of them, I promise. I'll tell you everything" Brevil had now stopped, his hand resting on kiph's shoulder.

"Now, Kiph... Calm down. What did the voice sound like? What did It say?"

"Nevermind. I'll go first, we can talk about what you heard later."

"You want to know about The Last Gambit? Okay, that's not a problem, I'll tell you what I know."

"They are a large company, a large corporation, from up north. I think they used to have a centre near Bleak wood, about a couple of decades back. Something happened. Nobody really knows what, thing is, we didn't see anybody from the centre again. After that, they came in town every so often. Huge caravans, dozens of trucks, at least as many people. They... had an affinity with genetics. with mutants. They would... buy slaves... In bulk... The Spacers...The Spacers seemed to respect them. They were allowed close to the ships, and had advanced weaponry."

And then the screams were heard, accompanied by the sound of the minigun.

<ooc>AG. From now on, I am on special lookout for the last gambit insignia, as well as advanced power source for the pda and shield. (if the last gambit were here, we're bound to find some of their technology)</ooc>

[Ancient Gamer]

<OOC> No problem d_d. If any others among you wish to say something BEFORE the sounds are heard, just go ahead and do so now. A little mixing of time doesn't hurt. Not much at least. </OOC>

[Murometz]

Kiph stared aghast at Brevil, then opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The machine gun fire interrupted his thoughts and made him wince for a moment, but then just as quickly, he burst into a sprint, across the blasted remains of the market, around and over the multitude of corpses, and toward the very hill, he had chased an eavesdropper the last time he was in Bleakwood. Grunting and breathing hard, his weapon in hand, Kiph kept running toward the sound. Thirty feet, forty, fifty. He had reached the hill, and now proceeded to clamber up its rubble-strewn path.

When he neared the top of the hill however, he dove behind what looked like a wrecked car, and looked back at his companions. All safe up to here, he tried to get across with his expression, then looked back toward the Academy. He could see the garage ahead, covered in vine, like the rest of the brick building, the walls laden with free-standing junk, and for a moment Kiph surmised that if he had to, he could scale his way to the roof.

A few hundred feet ahead, he could make out the garage, and peered intently in its direction. The sounds of screaming and gunfire, had come from there.

For the moment, he simply stared intently. If he didnt hear anything else, his plan was to sprint to the very door of the garage with his next burst.

Catching his breath, he glanced at the back bumper of the wrecked vehicle which he was now hiding behind on all fours, and using for cover.

"Dodge. Ram Tough."

Kiph tittered nervously. He had no idea what that could mean, but somehow this mysterious mesage on the ruined car, seemed to apply to his current situation.

He tried to gather his thoughts as he stared at the garage entrance, antcipating that at any moment, G'Kraun would come pouring forth. Kiph braced himself, his weapon aimed at the garage door. He needed this. He needed to keep his mind occupied. He did not want to think of the Last Gambit right now.

[Ancient Gamer]

Kiph remembered that garage. The last time they had been here, he, Bakur, Ralkhara and Ceres had hauled along the Holy Relic of Radiatos and a scarred young guard had barred their way, preventing access to the Academy. A distance to his right he also noticed the monolithic brick and plaster windmill in which he had acquired his dart gun over a month ago.

It feels like it was in another life, Kiph thought before focusing on the scene in front of him.

His dart gun was trained at the garage door, in front of which a nude muscular man stood, both hands firmly on a minigun which was spewing out a hailstorm of caseless rounds even as he watched. The muscular man screamed, his body torn and ripped, blood running from his eyes and nostrils. Metallic pins had been thrusted into his upper skull, like a circlet of nails, more than four inches of steel visible on the outside. An electric current jolted from bolt to bolt, the man screaming in horror and spasming rhytmically. Still he did not release the trigger and he circled around, peppering the facade of the Academy with devastating rounds of metal, sending fragments of bricks and plaster in every direction.

"Noooooooo! Die! Die!" he screamed, but all around him everyone was already dead, both humans and G'Kraun. Everyone but Kiph and his allies, and the maddened gunner.

[Murometz]

Kiph had his dart gun aimed at the meaty part of the madman's back. One shot, and he'd drop.

Kiph hesitated pulling the trigger. Anyone else and they would be dead already. A helpless, distracted victim who could not see his killer was too tempting a target for the Fatebringer.

"No" he croaked quietly to himself and lowered the gun for a moment. "Anyone else I'd shoot..but its like watching MYSELF in some dream sequence escaping those @!#$ing bastards!"

Kiph just watched, awaiting his companions, and gaping at the shirtless madman, as blood continued to erupt from the shooter's orifices, oozing down his chest and back in narrow red rivers.

Slowly the hungry worms returned into Kiph's brain as he waited. Some painful buzzing, then white nosie, then...a feeling. A feeling of some unspeakable nightmare, some alien entity, some horrifying Thing was "touching" him inside. Kiph closed his eyes. Something felt him, and knew that he felt IT, and It knew that he knew.

The man was no victim of the spacers, Kiph suddenly realized! The man was meaningless, he was a plaything of It. And whatever It was, one thing was clear to Kiph now. It was afraid...not of him, but afraid nonetheless. And it iwas below the academy, deep down in the building's bowels.

Kiph hoped the other three would get here soon. He was going crazy again.

He fired, aiming between the man's shoulderblades.

[Ancient Gamer]

The dart was true in its flight, and it entrenched itself deeply between the shoulder blades, causing the frantic gunner to scream in pain.

The metallic buzzing of the minigun ceased as the nude man wobbled, then fell to one knee.

With a desperate cry he struggeled upright again, and the whirring of the minigun resumed as the man staggered towards Kiph, now cowering behind the Dodge.

"Mwazirach, Mwazirach, Gkheni-Ghkenii! Aieeeeeeee! Aieeeeeee! Aieeeeeee!" he cried, blood running in rivulets from eyes, mouth and nostrils. The sound of electric discharges could be heard even above the sound of the minigun now, and as Brevil, Riv and Ceres came running uphill they noticed that the maniac had a halo of blue electricity around his skull.

************************

The car was hammered slowly back and Kiph flinched and grunted as a fragment tore off a piece of flesh on his left buttock.

This was not supposed to happen, he thought as the deadly metallic hailstorm hammered into the Dodge, inching it, and him, towards the sloping hillside.

[Murometz]

oh @!#$, oh @!#$, oh @!#$! Kiph thought, as he tried in vain to push back against the dodge, edging closer to the brim of the hill. Realizing the futility in this, he leapt to the side, rolled, fired again at the charging machine gunner, and ran towards Ceres and company.

He hoped no one saw him fire that first dart. They were all in a wasp's nest now, and it was Kiph's fault.

[valadaar]

Bloody idiot! thought Riv. Time for some brain surgery.

Riv dashed forward, hunched over slightly and holding his shotgun to the fore.  Closing in to he psychotic behemouth, he aimed at the oversized and well lit head...

[EchoMirage]

Not trusting her skills with the recently acquired gun, Ceres ducked around a corner, kept her head down and ran towards the nude man in the cover of a wall. As soon as she was out of his arc of fire, she ran towards him, to wrench the gun out of his hands.

As far as sh remembered, not many men used to walk around with electricity spraying around their heads.

Perhaps, the strange creature might pour precious light into the happenings in the ghost town that was Bleak Wood.

Truly, she could not help but wonder how life might have been before fire rained from the skies and war was everywhere. It was hard to imagine fields of green, and people who did not commit one violent act in their lives.
"Wishes have to wait" she thought as she ran towards the screaming madman.

[Ancient Gamer]

Bullets pierced the car, making it look more like swiss cheese than a Dodge. His rump was hurting as if fiery demons from hell had ravaged his posterior, the high velocity bullets having eaten well into the left buttock.

Kiph rolled and fired, hissing in pain as his ass grazed the ground.

The second dart hit the screaming giant in the balls, causing an enraged shriek and bullets fired in every direction. Blood was running freely from the wound, the dart pressing the balls against the right thigh. For a scant second, Ceres spotted the stone nearly exiting the rift caused by the wound. The testis wants to escape the scrotum, the medic thought bemusedly.

Still, he would not be stopped, though the bullets now rained everywhere, dispersed by the hurt and partially sedated madman.

Riv ran in a crouch, closing in on the gunner, when suddenly the minigun was swung in his direction. Acting with haste, the hippy squeezed the trigger, his expert marksmanship once again proving invaluable as he blasted the head off from the neck up, leaving behind a bloody stump squirting blood into the air. The body stood there, suspended for a minute, before it brutally slumped to the ground.

Meanwhile Ceres had circled around and was splattered with blood as Riv tore the head off the maddened minigunner. For a brief instance her hopes for an interrogation died, and she sighed while wiping blood off her face.

Then she heard screaming and wailing from behind the garage doors and suddenly figures began squeezing under one that was partially open.

G'Kraun and ordinary men, all with pins embedded in their heads, forming an unholy circlet of sorts, came pouring through. They came as a pack, the first wave already closing in on Ceres who was now closest to the garage, Kiph having run away from the gunner.

Meanwhile Brevil was struggling to make sense of it all. Kiph stood beside him, bleeding freely from his posterior, but all Brevil could see was men and G'Kraun, performing a coordinated attack on the group.

[Murometz]

"Ahahahahahaha, what say you, Brevil?" Kiph shouted with unabashed lunatic glee, forgetting everything else in the heat of battle. "My ass hurts like a truck was driven through it, yet, its good to be alive!! Watch your own ass, Doc, I gotta help Ceres"

With that, he screamed again at the top of his lungs for no rhyme or reason, and ran, but not toward Ceres, and certainly not at the circle of G'Kraun and "pinners", but away and to the side, and then up to the garage. He glanced quickly around then began climbing up, using the spare junk piles and vines along the walls of the Academy.

<ooc> climb check, please. To the rooF!</ooc>

[dark_dragon]

Deciding on a course of action, Brevil dove  his hand into his cloak only to return with a fragmentation grenade. His eyes cold and merciless, he unpinned it, waited three long seconds with a live grenade in his hand, and threw it in the middle of the approaching group of G'kraun and puppetmen.

Once that done, He dove to the ground, away from the approaching monsters, all the while bellowing "Grenade!" so loud that his lungs felt as if filled with sharp sand.

No hope for the G'kraun or the puppetmen now...

<ooc>I flipping hope the grenade fuse isnt too short</ooc>

[valadaar]

Seeing the gernade sail through the air, Riv took cover being the dead gunner, using his massive bulk as a meat sheild.  Looking at the minigun, he struggled to put in on the giant's corpse, using it as a primative tripod.  Now, how does this thing work...

[Ancient Gamer]

"GREENAAAAAAADE!"

It sailed through the air, Brevil's eyes transfixed on it as it violently hit a giant G'Kraun in the left shoulder, the fiend grunting with disapproval. The grenade hit the ground and a second thereafter it exploded.

Ceres was thrown back by the powerful blast, a blinding white light knocking her senseless. She did not even feel hitting the ground.

Some meters away, Riv attempted to hide behind the corpse of the fallen gunner. Perhaps I can use the minigun on..., he thought, but his thoughts weren't finished as he was knocked around, falling face first into the dirt.

Kiph was on his way up the wall, scaling crates and machine parts, when the blast knocked the crates around. He clawed for the roof, but without a platform to stand upon he fell down, landing on knees and elbows. A scant second thereafter a shower of plank fragments hit him in the head and back.

*****************

Brevil gasped open mouthed at the carnage. The grenade had been thrown expertly into the throng, but the timing had been off and the grenade had exploded before his friends had a chance to react. The hostiles had bought it though, and a coughing and cursing Riv was stirring on the ground, completely covered in meat, intestines and with half a skull oozing yellow chunks of brain matter on his neck.

Beside him lay Ceres, still whole and breathing. She must have been knocked out though, for she looked almost peaceful where she lay, her torso covered in crimson.

Kiph had been grunting and making a fuzz ever since the explosion. Brevil couldn't see him, but he could surely hear him, behind all those crates.

From somewhere inside the Academy someone, or something, howled in outrage. It wasn't a human sound, more akin to an animal in pain and suffering. From within the garage those whose ears didn't ring too much heard the elevator moving.



(OOC1; Your ears are ringing, your bodies are aching and your foes are dead or dying. Life is grand, isn't it?)

(OOC2: Yes, lots and lots of rolls were made. I think they deduct from the game flow, but if anyone wants numbers either ask in the OOC or send me a pm. Good news is that your rolls were really good. Bad news is that a few essential rolls were not that good).

(OOC3: Yes, brain matter is yellow according to a good friend who has 10 years experience in the funeral/dead people business).

(OOC4: Both G'Kraun and humans had pin-heads)

[dark_dragon]

Remembering his basic notions of medical triage, brevil considered his companions:

Riv. Pissed off. good sign: alive.

Kiph. Noisy, good sign: alive and kicking.

Ceres. Ceres. Ho. s**t. Ho. s**t. s**t. s**t.

"Riv. Go check on Kiph. I'll try to wake Ceres up". Running towards Ceres, and slowly kneeling down besides her he checked the ABC:

Airway: clear
Breathing: normal
Circulation: still pumping.

Thank God

Was she hurt?

The crimson shower made it hard to see whether she was the one bleeding. Gently, Brevil started to try and wake her up, squeezing her shoulder lightly, while with the other hand checking the crimson covered armor for the sharp bite of a shrapnel hole:

"Ceres. Ceres. Can you hear me. Ceres. Ceres. Come On. Ceres."